Word: freeman
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...Just as unforgettable was the grin that later lit up the face of Cathy Freeman as she became the last Olympian to be handed the torch after a tantalizing relay around the stadium, from Raelene Boyle and Betty Cuthbert, to Dawn Fraser, Shirley Strickland, Shane Gould and Debbie Flintoff-King. And then an eternity it really seemed, as the flaming cauldron wobbled above Freeman's head, stopped, then began its agonizingly slow crawl up the 70-meter waterfall. A small engineering problem had caused "some extraordinary adrenaline rushes" among the organizers, said master of ceremonies Ric Birch. But by evening...
...ceremony's artistic director, David Atkins, later quipped, "You can't get Brazil to march in straight lines." Then, as the evening moved into overdrive, there was diva Tina Arena's deep breath, and wink to the orchestra, before she launched into "The Flame," Gould's girlish skip and Freeman's giggle. Sydney doesn't like to stand on ceremony, and as the flame was hoisted, the golden girls grouped together and chatted as if at a family barbecue...
...results, in the events and in spectacle, were so good that by Sunday morning the host nation was already declaring victory over the Games of Atlanta. Australia's opening ceremony not only had ceremony but also offered substance in twin dramas of national and international reconciliation. When Aboriginal Cathy Freeman, a favorite in the 400-meter run, crossed a pond of water to light the Olympic flame, she symbolically bridged a racial divide that has tainted and tormented Australia. And during the parade of athletes, the teams of South and North Korea entered as one, two bitter enemies reuniting...
Unfortunately her vehicle of choice, a 1997 Buick LeSabre, is the very one in which Del stashed his stolen drugs. Equally unfortunately, the guys who offed him (Morgan Freeman's pensive Charlie and his kick-ass protege, Chris Rock's Wesley) are in hot pursuit, intent on recovering the goods and silencing the only witness to their crime...
...Freeman's Charlie is a more complicated figure. The Polaroid pictures of Betty he carries take on talismanic power for him, and he keeps referring to her as a Doris Day type, which somewhat oversimplifies her--and also, perhaps, betrays his age and his longing for the more coherent times in which he was raised. He may be a hit man, but he's a cultivated one. He claims to read books and listen to symphonies; he manifestly loathes yet loves the volatile Wesley. This is a great, understated performance, wistful and funny, by a superb actor, and maybe...